Alexander Mamut’s $12m dividend payout from Polymetal

Waterstone’s billionaire Russian owner, Alexander Mamut, will see his bank balance jump by $12 million (£7.8 million) after FTSE 100 miner Polymetal hiked its final dividend by more than half.

Russian gold producer Polymetal, in which Waterstone’s rescuer Mamut is a 10% shareholder, increased its final dividend from 20 cents to 31 cents after reporting a 38% rise in profit to $401 million on the back of higher production.

The dividend hike comes less than three months after Polymetal paid a special dividend of $0.50-a-share, netting Mamut a further $19 million.

Shares in Polymetal rose 42.0p, or 5.1%, to 879.30p, as shareholders welcomed the dividend, whose rise was enabled by a 40% growth in revenues to $1.85 million.